"Get Out of the Way" awards part II
Well we seem to be in the phase of any crisis were frustration is taking over. Watch carefully how world media and the agenda-driven organizations of the world spin this crisis for their own benefit. Freedom of the press is one of the most precious gifts of a democratic society. Having said this, some of those in the media claiming to be Nepal "experts" use that gift in, often, blatently manipulative ways.
GET OUT OF THE WAY:
India: Stop pouting by refusing to invite Pakistan and Nepal "Mayors" to your little conference. You are still fuming at the King's move like spoiled children. Remember last year when you invited Sher Bahadur Deuba and the head of the Royal Nepal Army to India for a little meeting, without even giving the King of Nepal adequate notice? What was that gesture supposed to do? So, who snubbed whom first? And what about this absolute refusal to allow any third-party mediation in this current situation? Sounds like the height of arrogance. Who are you to refuse anything? The U.S. has asked you, repeatedly, to take the lead in this crisis; if you're not prepared to do so: GET OUT OF THE WAY.
The Telegraph: (Indian newspaper) The wonderfully typical Indian method of manipulating the facts has given way to full frontal fabrication. Today's telegraph, none to subtly, implied that the U.S. has suspended arms sales along with India and the U.K. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/24/wmao24.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/02/24/ixworld.html
Not a chance, Telegraph.
The International Crisis Group (ICG): Here we go. Blogdai has seen, and has direct confrontations with groups like this in the past. They locate in an official sounding city like Brussels, apply some obscure name to themselves, and begin to spit venom. The Heritage Foundation writes like this, so does an outfit called STRATFOR out of Texas. These groups stock themselves with "analysts" and the lazy media eat up their wild predictions. They are designed to generate attention and further their specific agendas. Here's a fairly good article about the ICG. blogdai says "fairly" because it is on a somewhat controversial website. The ideas are sound, however: http://www.antiwar.com/blog/comments.php?id=P651_0_1_0_C
Some blogdai mnemonics:
In an effort to be more trendy and fit in with the blogger community, we will start our own collection of mnemonics and acronyms. We will try to avoid the old cliche's like LOL and the little smiley faces made with semicolons ;) So, here we go: suggestions for additions to this list are always incouraged and usually acted upon.
GOTW: Get Out of the Way. (See above) Generally, something deemed a nuisance or counter productive to the discussion should get a GOTW. Disagreeing with blogdai seldom earns this. Blatent advertising or unrelated stuff just might, however.
RYLOP: Raise Your Level of Play. It is more of an admonishment than a scold. blogdai joked (poorly) about being forced to attend CIA parties (not true) to which one poster cried: Aha! so blogdai is with the CIA! Sorry pal, RYLOP.
DBN: Drive-By-Nepali: Generally a young, frustrated person who gets on the internet, say, somewhere in Kathmandu, stumbles across nepalnow.blogspot.com, leaves an angry comment, and then doesn't stick around for the subsequent debate. While they are frustrating, blogdai feels these type of comments are necessary as a guage.
-=blogdai
posted by blogdai @ 2/24/2005 07:43:00 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
could the so called blog"dai", have contributed this to the nepali times?
• Saubhagya Shah’s guest column (‘At the helm’, #235) is a powerful antidote to textbook democrats in India, America and elsewhere who keep on harping the democracy tune without taking contemporary Nepali reality into account. The critics of the king’s move ought to realise that February First was not only desired but required to clean up the mess that Nepal is in. The sheer hypocrisy and double standard of the west in promoting democracy and showing their concerns over regimes based on their own strategic and other interests is a well known and established among observers of international politics. They need to realise that sometimes their version of democracy is not a good fix for local problems, and third world countries should be left alone to act in their countries’ best interests. I couldn’t agree more with Saubhagya Shah: thank you west and the, but let us solve our problems ourselves now.
Name withheld,
email
No comment on the other GOTW's but the ICG reorts are decent in my opinion. Sure, their board is stocked full of luminaries of reformist liberal thinking and they are a voice not of the most radical but liberal international players. But what is so wrong with that. At least they are decent 'experts' compared to others. That's how they designed their organization, to fill this niche.
No one disputes the ICG's right to publish ideas, but groups like these often mask a higher strategy.
They often advocate strong left or right wing positions that use language that is simple enough to catch the media's eye and sway public opinion. Nothing wrong with that either, but their "experts" are either spokespeople for a certain wing of a government or they are single issue journalists trolling the public opinion waters looking for mass anger and mass appeal.
The point is, groups like the ICG never intend to inform you about the issues at hand.
It is tribalism, pure and simple. They know that the ill-informed of the world would rather not take the time to research an issue thoroughly; they would rather have their emotions stirred in a simple fashion. Emotional people write checks faster, and in larger numbers than those who calmly weigh all the facts of an issue.
The ICG is drumming up support for the ICG and no one else. Their stuff is designed to inflame and polarize.
-=blogdai
El, great stuff. Can you give links to this reporting?
The phrase that most sticks in blogdai's mind is "..not in the (Indian)national interest. That fairly well explains it all. India is an ally of India, plain and simple. When India feels threatened, all bets are off-including freedom of the press democracy.
This is the height of hypocracy. How dare India scream and demand Nepal's return to democracy when this is a blatent and governmental attempt to stifle their own free press?
Perhaps it was not the loss of the democratic aspects of Nepal's former government that makes India so upset; rather, it's the loss of the chaotic and dependent satellite state that was maintained under the guise of democracy.
-=blogdai
Thanks El,
Corrections to previous post:
"freedom of the press AND democracy.
"Hypocricy" not "hipocracy"
blogdai posted prior to proofreading.
(Ha! a new mnemonic: PPP = Posted Prior to Proofreading. Giving the poster the benefit of the doubt for poor punctuation and spelling. )
blogdai stands corrected once again. The word "hypocrisy" is hereby banned -in any spelling- from this site. ha! -=blogdai
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